The present disclosure relates to fluid delivery systems. In particular, it relates to fluid delivery systems for medical appliances.
Certain surgical appliances use a supply of fluid for irrigation of a surgical site on a patient as well as for cooling of the surgical appliance. Some non-limiting examples of this type of surgical appliance include micro-debriders, otologic drills, and the like. One common method of providing consistent fluid delivery to a surgical appliance includes pumping fluid through medical tubing via a positive displacement pump, such as a peristaltic pump. Peristaltic pumps are desirable for many reasons, such as their ability to maintain sterility of the fluid and cleanliness of the pump because the fluid flows through the medical tubing and does not come into contact with components of the pump. For these reasons, a peristaltic pump also can be used for delivering medications via an intravenous delivery system and/or for other medical applications. In each case, some type of tubing is placed within the peristaltic pump to allow its rollers to cyclically engage the tubing to provide the desired pumping action.
Despite the many advantages of peristaltic pumps for use in medical applications, there are some drawbacks. For example, proper placement of tubing within the pump continues to remain a challenge. In some conventional pumps, an operator uses their hands to feed a segment of the tubing into position within the pump. Despite the best intentions of the operator, the tubing is frequently not aligned properly within the pump, resulting in inconsistent fluid flow and/or the pumping of an insufficient volume of fluid with each cycle of the peristaltic pump. This difficulty arises, in part, from the awkwardness of using two hands to align and place the tubing relative to one or more rollers of the peristaltic pump. At the same time, a user attempts to maintain a proper angle of the tubing as it extends through the pump. A further challenge arises as an operator attempts to close the door of the pump while still maintaining the proper tube positioning. To make matters worse, misunderstandings are common among operators in the field as to what actually constitutes proper tube positioning and as to what is included in the proper technique.
Accordingly, conventional fluid delivery systems are sometimes operated without properly installed tubing, thereby diminishing the other well-established advantages of using peristaltic pumps for supplying fluids to medical appliances.